A Round-up of APMs Marketplace, 2-21-12

March 21, 2012

Kai’s interview with El Presidente, Señor Barry O to the Bama.

– Having 2% of world’s oil, using 20% ~ that math doesn’t square
– Middle East instability,
– reduced oil imports to under 50%
– need to double fuel efficiency standards, to 55mpg in the next decade (would save $8,000 for average family)
– need the ‘all of the above’ model
– why the Prez is visiting a solar panel company, even in light of this current oil/gas crisis
– Speaking of solar energy upstarts, etc., que pasó with Solyndra…?!
– China bled the global solar market through massive state funded subsidies to Chinese solar companies
– When an industry is trying to get it’s foot in the market, there’s always a bigger price/cost to pay to combat the traditional products/modes of business that have a history of advantages (infrastructure, brand/business familiarity, knowledge/researxh, etc.), and obvious profit-lag — especially during the country’s worst economic recession in the nation’s history (save 1930 Depression)
– promised $150 million to create 5 million jobby-jobs, que pasó? el recesión grandote…eso
– 1. housing market – still biggest drag on economy ~ allowed everyone w/ a mortgage through the gov’t to refinance w/ low int-rates
2. infrastructural improvements – that we need, that create jobs, that congress need to start acting on

Special Collab w/ The New York Times on Comebacks
From Williston, North Dakota
Unemployment is low at 1%, but the costs have greatly increased. A doubling of population to near 20,000 and the oil/economic boom have brought different ‘costs’, or the classic duh theory every time I hear it used, the law unintended consequences. Basic infrastructure has failed to keep up in the slightest, in the most common of areas; housing, roads, water/sewage, and public safety. Modern ‘Hoovervilles’ have sprung up on the oitskirts of town, referred to as ‘man-camps.’ Traffic has increased threefold and the massive amounts of sandy grime the tractor trailers haul in and out of town have clearly dirtied up the natural, environmental milieu. Assaults and rapes abound, and the suspected abduction and murder of Sherry Arnold (whose body still hasn’t been found) have increased the city’s fears of new, incoming residents. The two male suspects charged with Arnold’s abduction were from Colorado in search of the work. Gun permits have risen to a total more in one month than all of 2010. Jobs and economic productivity are one thing, but pardon the cliché — all in moderation.

Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schulz met in their annual shareholders’ meeting, and noted how business has a role in providing some sort of social good to society, aside from their fundamental ‘bottom-line.’

That leads us to Robert Reich…

Off the heels of Greg Smith’s resignation from Goldman Sachs, and the clear instances of ultimate Wall Street stereotypical sleaze, a lá Gordon Gecko variety, it’s time to take a sober look at the economy’s need, as always, for reform. While some scoff at personal, private moral decisions behind close doors, the worst breeches of values and trust are happening with eyes wide open in the public sphere of interaction, especially of economic nature.
Two notably noteworthy examples of a rupture in our public, economic context rest in the last hundred years or so;
– Early 1900s: Clear inequities reflected clearly in the excesses of the barons that gouged public and private markets for profits, prided over sweatshops, etc.
– 1930s: Financial, Wall Street Debacle, and the Depression
– need a new era of reform based on…
– deter and stop profound conflicts of interest
– reining in exhorbitantly large salaries, esp. in the banking and finance sectors that scream conflict(s) of interest(s)
– stop banks from gambling with customers’ money
– and reverse the illogical and unfair fulcrum to unequal political sway, the Citizens’ United Supreme Court decision that opens the floodgates to political campaign contributions and rich

The worst qualities of our society, esp those found in the intersections of politics and the economy are made in plain view in our countries’ boardrooms ~ not it’s bedrooms…BAM, little big man R^squared, Robby to the Reich, hollah, lol

Homeless in Public Restrooms
David LaFleur, homeless man, 51 years old, who need help and use

Lea Escara, the library is to be totally inclusive, accessible as the front line of public services that unemployed, impoverished, and homeless people need more than ever.

After asking the people what they need, they were surprised by the responses and answers they got, like a place to sleep, haircuts, and laundry detergent. So they started offering